Commentary: A Festivus for taxpayers

David Williams

Published
4:15 am CST, Thursday, December 22, 2016

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Commentary: A Festivus for taxpayers

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As people celebrate the holidays in different ways across the country, the Taxpayers Protection Alliance is celebrating Festivus. The holiday created by the television show “Seinfeld” challenges all the normal rules of gift giving and decorations and is essentially a day of telling people why you’re upset with them about the choices they’ve made over the last year.

The first tradition of Festivus is “the airing of grievances.” This part of Festivus expresses the ways that taxpayers have been disappointed over the last year. While there could have been an entire book written on taxpayer grievances, here are just a few grievances that taxpayers have with bureaucrats and lawmakers.

Federal Communications Commission: The FCC has been a disaster for taxpayers and consumers in 2016. The agency, under the failed leadership of Chairman Tom Wheeler, used taxpayer money to expand their regulatory footprint by implementing new privacy rules and trying to ban “free data” services (seriously, the FCC doesn’t want consumers to have free data).

But, one of the most notable policy failures of Wheeler was his attempt to push through a controversial Set-Top Box plan. The proposal would have put the FCC in charge of content distribution and shifted copyright authority to the agency and away from the Copyright Office. The proposal stalled after criticism from both sides of the political aisle, including his fellow commissioners. Wheeler is stepping down in January, so it is hoped this will be the final year of grievances from the FCC.

Nuclear Bailouts: A pair of taxpayer and ratepayer-funded nuclear bailouts mark the next grievances for Festivus. In New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is gifting to taxpayers and ratepayers an increase in electricity costs and a multi-billion dollar bailout that didn’t even get a vote in the state legislature. Cuomo increased the state’s renewable standard and included nuclear power as a renewable power source. In Illinois, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill that expands the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard and also includes a multi-billion dollar bailout for select nuclear plants. The worst part of this bailout is that just one company in New York and Illinois will benefit from the bailouts. Taxpayers don’t deserve this nonsense from governors during the holidays, or at any other time during the year.

Well that does it for the 2016 Festivus message. It is hoped that with a new Congress and a new administration coming to Washington, there’ll be a lot less grievances and more feats of strength when the bare aluminum pole goes up again next year.

David Williams is president of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.